China Mobile to Start 5G Trials in over 100 Cities

South China Morning Post writes that China Mobile has started conducting 5G trials that will span over 100 cities across more than 20 provinces.

According to Bernstein Research, China wants to get a head start in the race to lead in 5G and ensure a significant amount of Chinese technology is embedded in the 5G standard. Bernstein Research also says that China’s vision of 5G is the most revolutionary; China is less focused on 5G residential broadband than for instance AT&T and Verizon.

China Mobile has previously stated that it plans to roll out a 5G network service in 2020. The company is currently conducting its own 5G research and preparation, albeit at a low investment level at this early stage.

China Mobile and Ericsson conducted what the companies claimed to be the world’s first 5G-enabled drone prototype field trial in August 2016. Furthermore, China Mobile and Huawei showed among other things a 5G 3.5GHz prototype, a 5G above 6GHz high band prototype, a 5G network slicing solution, and 5G smart car use case solution at Mobile World Congress Shanghai in June 2016.

Also other Chinese operators are naturally active in 5G. In the case of China Telecom, Daiwa Capital Markets expects that its 5G investments could happen from 2019 and 2020. China Unicom has signed a cooperation agreement with ZTE in August 2016 for 5G research.

A report by Bernstein Research says that 5G standardization will happen in a more concentrated industry than 3G or 4G. Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei will be the main contributors for the networks, whereas Qualcomm is likely to continue to lead in chip design. When it comes to operators, there is of very restricted pool of them than can take leadership in 5G, including China Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, Verizon, and perhaps Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom.